PMP 2026 — Practice Paper 1 (Mixed)

Question 1 of 25

1 At Aurora FinTech, two developers on a Scrum team openly disagree during the daily standup about whether to refactor a payments module now or defer it to a later sprint, and the tension is spilling into sprint planning. The Scrum Master notices the wider team disengaging. What should the Scrum Master do FIRST?

Keep the two developers out of standups until the disagreement cools down Ask the team to vote so the majority view settles the matter Escalate the disagreement to the Product Owner to decide the backlog priority Facilitate a conversation to surface the developers' interests and reach agreement

Under People Task 2 (Manage conflicts), the servant-leader's first move is to address the conflict directly by facilitating a collaborative resolution that surfaces each party's interests. Escalating or voting sidesteps the interpersonal issue, and excluding a team member damages trust and self-organization. Thomas-Kilmann's collaborating mode fits a task-based disagreement between capable peers.

2 Crestfield Retail Group has formed a new cross-functional agile team to build an omnichannel checkout. Three weeks in, members are challenging each other's ideas, roles feel unclear, and velocity is erratic. Which action by the team lead is MOST appropriate at this stage?

Report the team as underperforming and request replacements from resource managers Take over task assignment personally to impose order until velocity stabilizes Establish clear working agreements and coach the team through its current storming stage Wait for the team to reach the performing stage on its own before intervening

People Task 3 (Lead the project team) calls for tailoring leadership to the team's development stage. Erratic velocity and role friction indicate Tuckman's storming stage, where a servant leader helps the team form working agreements. Taking over tasks or requesting replacements suppresses the self-organization the team needs to reach performing.

3 On NexaBuild Construction's predictive highway-bridge project, a newly elected council member has begun publicly questioning the project's traffic disruption. The PM had classified this stakeholder as low-interest during planning. What should the PM do FIRST?

Escalate to the sponsor to have the council member's concerns dismissed Issue a press release defending the project's traffic-management plan Continue with the existing engagement plan because the stakeholder register was already approved Reassess the stakeholder's power and interest and update the engagement plan

People Task 4 (Engage stakeholders) requires continuous reassessment as stakeholder positions shift. A newly influential, vocal stakeholder must be re-analyzed on the power/interest grid before tailoring engagement. Publicizing a defense or dismissing concerns acts before understanding the stakeholder's actual influence and needs.

4 Aquila Aerospace's predictive radar program adds four new engineers to a team that previously had six members, all of whom must communicate directly with one another. Approximately how many additional communication channels does this create, and what should the PM do about it?

Ten additional channels; no change to the communication plan is needed Forty additional channels; route messages through a single coordinator to cut direct contact Thirty additional channels; revisit the communication management plan to handle the increased complexity Four additional channels; simply brief the four new engineers

People Task 8 (Plan and manage communication): using n(n-1)/2, channels rise from 15 (6 members) to 45 (10 members), an increase of 30. The steep, non-linear growth means the communication management plan must be revisited. Distractors that give 4 or 10 miscalculate by treating channel growth as linear.

5 At Iridia EdTech, the lead architect who designed the adaptive-learning engine has given three weeks' notice, and much of the design rationale lives only in her head. The PM wants to protect the project from the knowledge loss. Which approach is MOST effective?

Run knowledge-transfer sessions pairing her with the team before she leaves Reassign her open tasks to other engineers so delivery continues uninterrupted Escalate to HR to enforce a longer notice period Ask the architect to write a complete technical manual on her last day

People Task 7 (Help ensure knowledge transfer — new in the 2026 ECO) stresses fostering an environment that captures critical tacit knowledge. Pairing and structured sessions transfer know-how a last-day manual cannot. Reassigning tasks addresses workload but not the loss of design rationale.

6 Verdanix Health Systems runs a hybrid program to modernize a hospital records platform: fixed regulatory milestones with iterative delivery inside each phase. Halfway through, members from different squads describe the program's goal in conflicting ways during a review. What should the PM do FIRST?

Re-establish a shared program vision and confirm each squad aligns to it Let each squad keep its own interpretation as long as milestones are met Escalate to the sponsor to issue a directive resolving the disagreement Add a detailed scope statement to the change log and move on

People Task 1 (Develop a common vision) requires keeping the vision current and shared, especially in hybrid programs where multiple squads can drift. Realigning to a common vision precedes checking work alignment. A scope statement or sponsor directive does not rebuild the shared understanding the team has lost.

7 Verdana Consumer Goods is launching a product via an agile team. The marketing director expects a fixed launch date, while the Product Owner is prioritizing a minimum viable feature set that may exclude a feature marketing has promised to retailers. Which TWO actions should the PM take to align expectations? — select TWO.

Use a shared, visible backlog and release plan so both parties see priorities and forecast ranges Instruct the Product Owner to add the promised feature this sprint despite limited capacity Facilitate a joint conversation between marketing and the Product Owner to make scope-versus-date trade-offs transparent Commit to the fixed launch date to keep marketing satisfied Escalate the disagreement to the sponsor for a binding decision

People Task 5 (Align stakeholder expectations) calls for facilitating discussions and organizing information so stakeholders share a realistic view. A joint trade-off conversation plus a transparent backlog/release plan align expectations without overriding the Product Owner or over-committing. Forcing scope, fixing the date, or escalating first all bypass alignment.

8 On Marwood Government Services' predictive case-management rollout, the client's operations director keeps requesting weekly demos of features that are not yet baselined, raising the team's expectations of early delivery. The PM wants to keep expectations realistic. What should the PM do?

Deliver the requested weekly demos of unbaselined features to keep the director satisfied Maintain expectations against the baseline, sharing verified progress at a realistic cadence Submit a change request to re-baseline the schedule around weekly demos Decline further contact until the baseline features are complete

People Task 6 (Manage stakeholder expectations) is about aligning outcomes to what was agreed and responding to satisfaction signals without over-promising. Sharing verified progress on a realistic cadence manages expectations against the baseline. Demoing unbaselined work inflates expectations, while refusing contact damages the relationship.

9 On Hartfield Energy's predictive substation project, at month 8 the planned value (PV) is £4.0m, earned value (EV) is £3.4m, and actual cost (AC) is £4.0m. The sponsor asks whether the project is performing well. What do the metrics indicate?

Ahead of schedule, because EV is close to PV Under budget but behind schedule, because CPI is about 1.18 On budget and on schedule, because AC equals PV Over budget and behind schedule (CPI 0.85, SPI 0.85); investigate

Process Task 9 (Evaluate project status): CPI = EV/AC = 3.4/4.0 = 0.85 and SPI = EV/PV = 3.4/4.0 = 0.85, so the project is roughly 15% over budget and behind schedule. Comparing AC to PV is not a valid EVM measure, and inverting the ratio to 1.18 reverses the interpretation.

10 Polaris Mining Co.'s predictive processing-plant project has fallen two weeks behind on the critical path, and the completion milestone is contractually fixed. Adding cost is acceptable; increasing risk from overlapping dependent activities is not. Which schedule-compression technique should the PM choose?

Reduce project scope by removing a plant subsystem Crash the schedule — add resources at additional cost Fast-tracking — overlap dependent critical-path activities to save time Re-baseline the schedule to a later completion date

Process Task 8 (Plan and manage schedule): crashing recovers time by adding resources at extra cost while preserving the activity sequence, matching the constraint that cost is acceptable but added risk is not. Fast-tracking overlaps activities and raises risk; scope cuts and re-baselining conflict with the fixed contractual milestone.

11 Elmbrook Pharma's predictive plant-upgrade project is deciding how much to invest in early inspection and supplier qualification. Leadership questions the spend given tight budgets. Applying cost-of-quality (CoQ) thinking, how should the PM justify the investment?

Quality spending should be minimized here because appraisal activity adds little value to the deliverable Early prevention and appraisal spend is far lower than the failure costs it avoids Cost-of-quality logic applies mainly to manufacturing operations, not to a plant-upgrade project's deliverables Failure costs are largely unavoidable, so extra prevention spend offers little measurable return

Process Task 7 (Plan and optimize quality, including CoQ and sustainability): the cost of conformance (prevention + appraisal) is normally much smaller than the cost of nonconformance (internal + external failure), which in pharma includes recalls and penalties. Framing the spend this way justifies early investment; the distractors misstate CoQ economics.

12 Kalahari Logistics is procuring a bespoke warehouse-automation system where the core requirements are well defined but some integration work is uncertain. The PM wants to control cost risk while fairly compensating the vendor for the uncertain scope. Which TWO actions are MOST appropriate? — select TWO.

Delay the procurement until the integration details are fully known Place the entire engagement on a cost-plus-percentage-of-cost (CPPC) basis Use a firm-fixed-price (FFP) contract for the well-defined core system Transfer risk to the vendor via FFP for the whole scope, including the uncertain work Use a cost-reimbursable or time-and-materials arrangement for the uncertain integration work

Process Task 5 (Plan and manage procurement): matching contract type to risk means FFP where scope is clear and cost-reimbursable/T&M where scope is uncertain, so risk is shared appropriately. CPPC incentivizes higher costs, forcing FFP onto uncertain work invites mispricing and disputes, and waiting for perfect information stalls delivery.

13 Crestfield Retail Group's agile team can deliver either a loyalty feature that early data suggests will lift repeat purchases, or a back-office reporting feature the finance team has requested for later. The release can include only one this sprint. How should the Product Owner and PM decide?

Build the reporting feature first because finance formally requested it Split effort so both features are half-built this sprint Prioritize the feature with the greatest validated business value Defer both until a full business case is written for each

Process Task 3 (Help ensure value-based delivery) prioritizes work by value and stakeholder feedback and delivers it incrementally. The loyalty feature's evidence of higher value should be sequenced first. Choosing by who requested it, splitting effort, or deferring for documentation all reduce delivered value.

14 A new sustainability-disclosure regulation will require Kalahari Logistics to report supply-chain emissions data that its current predictive project was not scoped to collect. The PM learns of this mid-execution. What should the PM do FIRST?

Ignore it because the project baseline was approved before the regulation existed Add emissions-tracking features to the current sprint immediately, without analysis Escalate to legal to challenge whether the regulation applies Assess the compliance requirement's impact and route it through change control

Business Environment Task 2 (Plan and manage compliance) requires identifying compliance requirements and determining the necessary action, while Task 3 governs changes. Assessing impact and using integrated change control is the disciplined first step. Ignoring the rule risks noncompliance, and adding features without analysis bypasses governance.

15 During Verdanix Health Systems' predictive records-migration project, a security assessment reveals that a supplier's data-transfer method could expose patient records if a specific vulnerability is exploited. No breach has occurred yet. How should the PM handle this in the risk process?

Log it in the issue log and take no further action until a breach occurs Halt the entire migration until the supplier is replaced Accept the risk because no breach has happened yet Record it in the risk register, analyze probability and impact, and plan a response

Business Environment Task 5 (Plan and manage risk, including poor IT security) treats an un-realized threat as a risk to be registered, analyzed, and responded to proactively. Recognizing when a risk becomes an issue (Task 4) matters, but this is still a risk. Logging it as an issue or accepting it forfeits the chance to prevent a breach.

16 A NexaBuild Construction client verbally asks the site PM to add a drainage upgrade to the predictive project, promising to 'sort out the paperwork later.' The change would affect cost and schedule. What should the PM do?

Decline the request outright because it is not in the baseline Begin the drainage work immediately to maintain the client relationship Submit the change through change control and obtain approval before implementing Add it to the schedule and adjust the baseline without a change request

Business Environment Task 3 (Manage and control changes) requires executing the change control process before implementing any change to a baselined project. A formal change request lets the change control board assess cost and schedule impact. Starting work on a verbal request is scope creep; a flat refusal ignores a legitimate client need.

17 Aurora FinTech's agile team is midway through building a lending product when a regulator announces new affordability-check rules taking effect in four months. What should the PM and Product Owner do FIRST?

Continue the current backlog unchanged until the rules take effect Remove the lending product from the roadmap Pause development until the regulation is published in final form Assess the change's impact on the backlog and re-prioritize to maintain compliance

Business Environment Task 8 (Evaluate external business environment changes) calls for assessing and prioritizing the impact of external changes on scope/backlog. An agile team responds by re-prioritizing the backlog to absorb the new rules. Ignoring the change risks noncompliance, while halting or cancelling work overreacts to a manageable shift.

18 Iridia EdTech's agile team reports that a slow third-party API and an unavailable test environment are blocking two user stories from completing. As the impediments are raised in the standup, which TWO actions should the Scrum Master take? — select TWO.

Escalate the test-environment blocker and track it to resolution Add the blocked stories to the next sprint and take no further action Permanently reduce the sprint's committed scope to avoid future blockers Prioritize the impediments by delivery impact and remove the most damaging first Tell the team to mark the stories done and move on

Business Environment Task 4 (Remove impediments and manage issues) requires evaluating impact, prioritizing, and applying an intervention to remove blockers. Ranking by impact and escalating the environment issue directly address the impediments. Marking stories done, merely deferring them, or cutting scope leaves the blockers unresolved.

19 Marwood Government Services is establishing governance for a new agile delivery program that must satisfy public-sector oversight while preserving team agility. Which TWO elements should the PM ensure the governance framework defines? — select TWO.

Detailed daily task assignments for each team member, set by the steering committee Clear success metrics and decision thresholds for escalation A rule that changes, however small, need full steering-committee sign-off Escalation paths that specify when and to whom issues are raised A scope baseline fixed for the whole program and not revisited

Business Environment Task 1 (Define and establish project governance) covers success metrics, escalation paths, and thresholds. Defining these gives oversight without dictating daily work. Assigning tasks centrally, requiring committee sign-off for every change, or freezing scope would undermine the agility the program needs.

20 Verdana Consumer Goods pilots an AI tool that forecasts sprint risks from historical delivery data. In one sprint the tool flags a supplier as 'high risk,' but the team suspects the model is biased by outdated data. How should the PM use the AI output?

Ask the vendor to suppress the risk flags until the model has been retrained Dismiss the flag and stop using the tool's outputs, since the model may be biased Act on the high-risk flag immediately by switching suppliers Treat the AI forecast as one input, validate it against current evidence, then judge

Business Environment Task 5 (Plan and manage risk) and the 2026 ECO's emphasis on AI as a decision aid mean AI outputs inform, but do not replace, professional judgment. Validating the flag against current data guards against model bias. Over-trusting the flag or dismissing it outright both misuse the tool.

Case 1: Hartfield Energy — Solar Farm Program

Hartfield Energy plc is delivering a 200 MW solar farm in southern Spain using a hybrid approach: predictive top-level milestones (regulatory approvals, grid connection, commissioning) with agile delivery inside each phase. The program manager, Diane Okonjo, leads about 45 people split across three Scrum teams plus a regulatory workstream.

At the end of Sprint 8 (month 6 of 24), the program dashboard shows:

CPI 0.82 · SPI 1.05
Sprint velocity has fallen roughly 30% over the last three sprints
The grid-connection regulatory milestone is at risk because of a new Spanish sustainability-disclosure requirement (CSRD-aligned)
Two senior engineers resigned last month, taking key design knowledge with them
The sponsor wants weekly executive reporting to start next week

Diane is preparing for the upcoming program steering committee and must decide how to frame the situation and what to recommend.

21 What should Diane do FIRST as she prepares for the steering committee?

Conduct an integrated impact analysis across cost, schedule, regulatory and capacity Replace the resigned engineers using the standing recruitment contract Reduce the sprint scope and commit only to what the smaller team can deliver Submit a change request to extend the grid-connection milestone

Process Task 1 (Develop an integrated project management plan) requires assessing dependencies and gaps across all dimensions before recommending action. This is a multi-factor situation; replacement, a change request, or scope reduction are individual responses chosen before the integrated picture is understood.

Case 1: Hartfield Energy — Solar Farm Program

At the end of Sprint 8 (month 6 of 24), the program dashboard shows:

CPI 0.82 · SPI 1.05
Sprint velocity has fallen roughly 30% over the last three sprints
The grid-connection regulatory milestone is at risk because of a new Spanish sustainability-disclosure requirement (CSRD-aligned)
Two senior engineers resigned last month, taking key design knowledge with them
The sponsor wants weekly executive reporting to start next week

Diane is preparing for the upcoming program steering committee and must decide how to frame the situation and what to recommend.

22 Considering the dashboard, which issue is MOST critical for Diane to address to protect continued business value?

The 30% velocity drop, because it is the only agile metric on the dashboard The CPI of 0.82, because cost overruns take priority over regulatory and schedule concerns The sponsor's request for weekly reporting, because executive satisfaction drives future funding The at-risk grid-connection milestone, since missing it blocks commissioning and revenue

Process Task 1 and Task 3 (value-based delivery) direct the PM to prioritize by impact on business value. A blocked regulatory milestone threatens the entire benefit stream — commissioning and revenue — so it outranks a velocity dip, a reporting request, or a cost variance considered in isolation.

Case 1: Hartfield Energy — Solar Farm Program

At the end of Sprint 8 (month 6 of 24), the program dashboard shows:

CPI 0.82 · SPI 1.05
Sprint velocity has fallen roughly 30% over the last three sprints
The grid-connection regulatory milestone is at risk because of a new Spanish sustainability-disclosure requirement (CSRD-aligned)
Two senior engineers resigned last month, taking key design knowledge with them
The sponsor wants weekly executive reporting to start next week

Diane is preparing for the upcoming program steering committee and must decide how to frame the situation and what to recommend.

23 As Diane plans next steps with the affected Scrum team, which TWO actions are MOST appropriate? — select TWO.

Pause retrospectives until after the steering committee to save time Merge the regulatory workstream into the Scrum team to consolidate effort Facilitate a retrospective to surface and prioritize the velocity-drop impediments Lower the team's velocity target so the sprint metrics look healthier Assess whether the resignations created skill gaps needing knowledge transfer

Business Environment Task 4 (Remove impediments) and People Task 7 (Knowledge transfer) are both directly relevant: uncover what is slowing delivery and address the knowledge lost with the resignations. Lowering targets games the metric, merging workstreams adds load, and skipping retrospectives removes the improvement loop.

Case 1: Hartfield Energy — Solar Farm Program

At the end of Sprint 8 (month 6 of 24), the program dashboard shows:

CPI 0.82 · SPI 1.05
Sprint velocity has fallen roughly 30% over the last three sprints
The grid-connection regulatory milestone is at risk because of a new Spanish sustainability-disclosure requirement (CSRD-aligned)
Two senior engineers resigned last month, taking key design knowledge with them
The sponsor wants weekly executive reporting to start next week

Diane is preparing for the upcoming program steering committee and must decide how to frame the situation and what to recommend.

24 Two weeks later, the regulatory workstream confirms the grid-connection milestone will slip by six weeks unless additional compliance work is funded now. That milestone is contractual. What should Diane recommend to the steering committee?

Present an integrated options analysis of the trade-offs, with a clear recommendation Absorb the six-week slip quietly and try to recover it later in the schedule Fund the compliance work from contingency immediately, without steering-committee review Cancel the affected phase and re-plan the entire program from scratch

Process Task 1 (maintain the integrated plan) and Business Environment Task 1 (governance) require bringing decision-ready options and a recommendation to the governance body when a contractual milestone is threatened. Absorbing the slip quietly is a governance failure, spending contingency unilaterally bypasses oversight, and cancelling the phase overreacts.

Case 1: Hartfield Energy — Solar Farm Program

At the end of Sprint 8 (month 6 of 24), the program dashboard shows:

CPI 0.82 · SPI 1.05
Sprint velocity has fallen roughly 30% over the last three sprints
The grid-connection regulatory milestone is at risk because of a new Spanish sustainability-disclosure requirement (CSRD-aligned)
Two senior engineers resigned last month, taking key design knowledge with them
The sponsor wants weekly executive reporting to start next week

Diane is preparing for the upcoming program steering committee and must decide how to frame the situation and what to recommend.

25 Reflecting on the program, which of Diane's practices BEST demonstrates effective hybrid project management in this scenario?

Maintaining predictive milestone governance while using agile delivery within phases Running each workstream, including regulatory approvals, as time-boxed sprints Letting each Scrum team choose its own governance to maximize autonomy Managing the whole program to a fixed baseline and treating sprints only as progress reports

A hybrid approach applies predictive control where commitments are fixed (regulatory milestones) and agile adaptivity where discovery is high (build phases). The distractors collapse hybrid into pure agile (sprinting fixed compliance work), pure predictive (baseline-only), or ungoverned autonomy. This reflects Process Task 1 (Develop an integrated project management plan).

Case 1: Hartfield Energy — Solar Farm Program

Case 1: Hartfield Energy — Solar Farm Program

Case 1: Hartfield Energy — Solar Farm Program

Case 1: Hartfield Energy — Solar Farm Program

Case 1: Hartfield Energy — Solar Farm Program

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